Security in Damietta defused two IEDs at a polling station in Kafr Saad township as 14,000 polling stations opened nationwide to receive more than 50 million registered voters for presidential elections.
Former defense minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and leftist politician Hamdeen Sabbahi are the sole competitors in the firsrt elections since Sisi ousted former president Mohamed Morsy, whose group, the Muslim Brotherhood, vowed to boycott and disrupt elections.
Abdel Fattah Othman, Assistant Interior Minister for Media Affairs, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that security forces are "prepared to confront any attempts to hinder the electoral process," adding that combat forces had been deployed outside polling stations to secure voters.
Meannwhile, Mohamed Suweidan, secretary of foreign affairs at the Brotherhood's Freeodm and Justice Party, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that "the group would never recognize the elections and will work on spoiling the process since it stole legitimacy from Mohamed Morsy, the country's legitimate president," as he put it.
He revealed that the Brotherhood youths will stage protests abroad and at home outside polling stations to urge citizens to boycott the polls.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
